


Edu-cat-ional

by Anonymous



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 13:35:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2390216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not that she doesn’t trust her matespurrits implicitly. It’s just that they’re both furry dependant on the bi-w33kly imperial allotments for their food, and she worries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Edu-cat-ional

It’s all furry reasonable. Nepeta recognizes that. She isn’t exactly incapable of figuring it out. Purrezi has to put all her energy into dealing with Vriskers and purracticing fur her Legislaceration qualifications if she’s efur going to make it past Ascension in tact. Which she  _will_ , it isn’t even a question. But she still can’t affurd the time it takes to teach herself more visceral skills than swordplay and wordplay and sweating out a perp.

Karkitty, on the other paw, has his claws tied by who he is and what he repurresents. Kanaya and Gamz33 and even Eridan and Fefurry k33p purromising that they’ve got it taken care of, that when Ascension comes he’ll be smuggled out by a bunch of Cult Worshippurrs, and it’ll all be fine. But until then, he can’t be caught, or s33n, or really do anything that might make it harder to get him out.

So it makes sense that they nefur learned to hunt or defend themselves against bigger, more feral opponents, or even simple stuff like how to gut a carcass so it doesn’t start to rot befur it’s even in the thermal hull. 

But Nepeta spent a long, solemn bright season when she was four sw33ps old being sepurrated from the supply lines, unable to collect the food that the imperial drones were supposed to provide. She remembers being starving and dependant on skills she had only barely started to hone. 

It makes her worry. Especially when she’s going away on longer hunts, or being called in for examinations for the hunterrorism cadet program, or anything that means she’ll be gone more than a few nights at a time.

So, befur she leaves, she always makes a point of catching a few cave squeakbeasts and offering the quickest, easiest lessons she can.

Cave squeakbeasts are much like their smaller, hivebound cousins, aside from being what Equihiss calls ‘of unusual size.’

That size is a little over thr33 times as big as Nepeta herself. But they’re slow and stupid, and purrobably the easiest prey- if not the tastiest- and so slaughtering them is more of a quick jaunt than a nights long excursion. They have thin skin and thinner fur, and all she really has to do is get her claws into the joint of spine and skull without getting stuck and rolled over on.

Easy.

Heaving the fresh carcass back to Terezi’s tr33hive is more difficult. Even drained of blood and organs it's still pretty unwieldy.

Things don't get any easier once Karkat start yelling about- in rapid succession- the smell, the hygiene, and the fact that Nepeta is definitely going to break her own neck climbing one handed with something that size over her shoulder.

"Well, you could help!" Nepeta retorts, heaving herself up a little higher.

"He’s only scared because  _he’d_  break his neck!” Terezi cackles, hanging off Karkat’s shoulder. If she weren’t made of twigs and knives, the weight might unbalance him, but furtunately if Nepeta herself is a third the size of the squeak beast, then Terezi is a quarter.

"Well  _excuse me_  for being  _concerned_! Where are you even going to keep something that size!”

"We’ll hang the extra parts as a warning to trespassers,  _obviously_.” Terezi’s ability to somehow speak and laugh at the same time remains a mystery to all.

"Are you shitting me, no! That’s disgusting! You can’t just leave rotting meat everywhere!"

"Sure you can!" Nepeta chimes in, as she lugs the carcass onto the floor, pulling herself up afterwards. "It’ll be good bait, so you can practice killing scavengers. Protecting your kill is impurrtant too, you know."

Karkat’s off on a new tangent just like that, which is exactly where Nepeta wants him. Terezi is sniffing hugely in Nepeta’s direction, suspicious, but by then it is all too late!

The might lioness pounces over her kill, a flying leap to her next prey!

The thr33 of them collapse into a pile of bruised elbows and knocked horns beneath Nepeta’s tackle of a hug, and she’s already slotted her head in betw33n their faces, nuzzling wildly by the time Karkat finds his breath to start up again.

"Oh my grubfucking  _god you_ stink! Did you  _bathe in it_  or something?” 

"I know!" 

"She knows!"

They really should get to properly skinning it, so that they can bake one of the hind legs for Nepeta to take with her on the road, but… that can wait.


End file.
